Prolonged short-circuit conditions of switching power supplies excessively stress the power components, resulting in premature and avoidable failure. Short circuit conditions are detected by a prolonged high level error amplifier output signal, which had been used to trigger a sequence of one-shot multi-vibrators to quench the operation of the pulse-width modulator driver circuit. Alternate embodiments count pulse periods after an overload or shorted condition is detected. Either implementation provides a fixed sequence of operation of serially operating or incrementing circuits. Such circuits also require a substantial number of components whose type and values make miniaturization and integration difficult if not impossible.